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Anna Ormiston and Jesi Hessong, student contractors with the USGS Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative, or ARMI, display several discarded mylar balloon collected by field teams working in and around the Capital Region National Parks in the summer of 2015. They collected a total of 71 balloons.

Determining aboveground biomass of sagebrush, grasses, and forbs is important for estimating fuel loads, measuring carbon storage, and assessing habitat quality in shrublands. Remote sensing may offer a more efficient alternative to common, labor intensive methods of measuring aboveground biomass that are difficult to apply across large areas. Researchers from the USGS are

Samples from various aquatic species and other material necessary to create environemntal DNA (eDNA) assays are stored at the Snake River Field Station in Boise. Water samples from aquatic ecosystems are compared against the assays to identify the presence and location of species in those ecosystems.

Samples collected form coho salmon that will be used to develop environmental DNA (eDNA) assays for the species. Water samples from aquatic ecosystems are compared against the assays to identify the presence and location of species in those ecosystems.

Snags provide habitat for a wide range of organisms from cavity-nesting birds to insects, and are critical for maintaining forest biodiversity. Resource managers can create snags by topping trees to mitigate loss of snags to timber harvest, but information regarding changes in habitat for snag-dependent wildlife over time as created snags decay is lacking. Oregon State